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Ted Warnell

C O N T E N T S LIT Features, reviews, papers VIRTUAL PARADIGM SHIFT Zn 99/03/26: You might recall paradigm shift... corporate buzzwords from a few years ago that finally and thankfully fell into disuse. Virtual and virtuality -- used it seems to describe virtually everything on the Internet -- should be the next to go. Copyright © 1999 by Zn and Ted Warnell. All rights reserved.

1999 MAR 26

Virtual Paradigm Shift
TED WARNELL

Of all the buzzwords
floating around the cyberstream -- hey, another one! -- virtual and virtuality are surely two of the most frequently (mis)used. Is it time yet to lose these annoying and misleading words on the growing heap of meaningless words and phrases people have tired of hearing ???
 

 

Virtual... virtuality...
What do they mean? According to Websters, virtual is "Having the power of acting or of invisible efficacy without the agency of the material or sensible part", while virtuality is "The quality or state of being virtual"... of course.

Virtual means 'not real' (physical). Now there's a news flash for you... did you really think you could drive nails by a Web surf? Saying this or that on the Net is virtual is like saying driving nails through your flesh is painful -- kind of obvious.

Why is virtuality such a big deal on the Net anyway? Images on a television screen portray but are not 'the real event', while a recording of a performance of a Beethoven symphony on a CD or on the radio isn't the live orchestra or even 'the performance'. Reading words in a book really isn't real either, but we don't label these things as virtual. Why do we persist with these artificial labels for everything we see and do on the Net?
 

The Internet is more than a simulation of physical reality.


 
So what?
So, perhaps instead of wasting time thinking about virtuality of the Net (versus reality of physical space)... perhaps it would be more productive for us to think about the reality of the Net?!?

Maybe it is time to stop using virtual and virtuality to describe something that is real in its own right; the Internet is more than a simulation of physical reality.
 

 

More news
of participatory events for artists posted this week in Zn NEW. Interactivity -- now that's real...
 
 
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